Ashley Blachford, Author at Journal of Urgent Care Medicine

Updated Evidence-Based Pediatric Asthma Management for the Urgent Care Provider

Urgent Message: Acute asthma exacerbations commonly present to urgent care, and providers must be well-equipped to recognize asthma exacerbations and be familiar with management recommendations. Samantha Shear, DO; Laura Calderon Suarez, MD; Maria Sara Valle Nodal, MD Keywords: pediatric asthma; asthma exacerbation; spirometry; inhaled corticosteroids; bronchodilator therapy; urgent care Abstract Overview: Asthma affects nearly 10% of children globally, with an estimated 95.7 million cases reported in 2021. This review discusses updates from the 2025 Global …

Circulatory Diseases Drive Higher Mortality in the U.S.

Compared with 17 other high-income countries, the United States had higher mortality rates from 1999–2022—adding up to 12.7 million excess deaths. Researchers found that annual excess deaths in the United States rose from 346,166 to 905,159 over the study period, as published in JAMA Network Open. By 2022, all-cause mortality rates were 1.38 times as high in the United States as in comparison countries. Circulatory diseases (eg, heart disease, hypertension, and stroke) were the leading …

AOM Treatment Shows No ‘Weekend Effect’

In a retrospective study from the pediatric emergency department (PED) at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital in Israel, researchers evaluated whether children with uncomplicated acute otitis media (AOM) received different care on weekends vs weekdays (the “weekend effect”), knowing that community-based pediatric clinics are closed on weekends. The review, published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, included 288 children aged 6 months to 10 years who presented to the PED between 2017 and 2024. Overall, …

Physician Gender Pay Gap Has Little to Do With Area of Specialty

A survey of 10,865 full-time physicians found that in terms of total compensation, female physicians earn just 78 cents for each $1 that male physicians earn—a gender pay gap of 22%. In actual dollars, female physicians reported average annual compensation of $354,000, compared to the $463,000 for male physicians. The gap in pay among physicians is substantially wider than the gap recorded in other industries across the U.S. labor market, according to Merit Health, which …

Upper Respiratory Visits Associated With Inappropriate Antibiotics

Despite ongoing education and stewardship programs, inappropriate antibiotic prescribing is still common in high-income countries, especially for respiratory illnesses. A review of 12 observational studies from primary care settings in the United States, Europe, and Asia between 2021 and 2025, published in Cureus, found that when analyzing prescribing patterns by category, respiratory tract visits contributed to the largest overall share of inappropriate prescriptions—even when their rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing was not the highest. Reported …

Gonorrhea and Syphilis Cases Surge in Europe

Recent surveillance data shows that sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are rising across Europe, with gonorrhea and syphilis reaching their highest recorded levels in more than a decade. Cases have increased the most among men who have sex with men, although infections are also increasing among heterosexual men and women, according to analysis from the University of Minnesota. Health officials are especially concerned about the growing number of congenital syphilis cases, which are considered preventable with …

Scoring Tools Help Clinicians Estimate Risk In Syncope Patients

Researchers found that both the Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS) and the FAINT score can inform clinical management of syncope in a prospective, observational study validating the tools published in JAMA Network Open. The primary outcome was a serious adverse outcome within 30 days of an emergency department (ED) visit. Among 1,263 patients aged 40 years or older with syncope or presyncope presenting to 6 urban EDs in the United States, 5.9% experienced a serious …

Site-Neutral Rule Will Level Reimbursement For Urgent Care

When major health systems acquire off-campus clinics, they’ve historically been able to use their main hospital’s assigned 10-digit National Provider Identifier (NPI) number to bill Medicare for routine visits at the off-campus site, securing significantly higher facility-level reimbursements. But starting in 2028, a new bipartisan policy will require hospitals to use distinct NPIs when billing for Medicare services provided at their off-campus outpatient sites. This concept of “site-neutral payment” will impact urgent care centers, essentially …

Azithromycin Does Not Improve Severe Wheezing in Young Kids

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found azithromycin did not lead to a greater reduction in symptom severity among young children presenting to the emergency department (ED) with moderate-to-severe wheezing. The study included 840 children aged 18–59 months—62% of which tested positive for potentially pathogenic airway bacteria, and 86.1% had detectable respiratory viruses. Rhinovirus was the most common (72.5%). In the study, conducted at 8 U.S. pediatric EDs, children received …

High Urgent Care Throughput Delivers Patient Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia

A study at the urgent care clinic of King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, found patients reported high overall satisfaction with their urgent care experience, as published in Cureus. More than 91% of patients said they were satisfied or very satisfied, and 93.5% said they would return for future care. Most patients (91.5%) were assessed within 30 minutes, including 65.5% seen within 15 minutes. Patients seen within 30 minutes were significantly more likely …

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